Short answers, pulled from the story.
The first documented case of HIV occurred in 1959 in the Congo. This retrovirus silently invaded the human population in west-central Africa during the early-to-mid 20th century before spreading to Haiti and the United States around 1969.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published the first report on AIDS on the 5th of June 1981. The term AIDS was introduced at a meeting in July 1982, and the CDC started referring to the disease as AIDS by September 1982.
Two research groups led by Robert Gallo and Luc Montagnier declared the discovery of the virus in 1983. In 1986, the virus was renamed HIV after the groups realized their isolated viruses were the same.
AIDS reduces the gross domestic product of the most affected countries due to the lack of human capital and increased healthcare spending. A study in Côte d'Ivoire showed that households having a person with HIV/AIDS spent twice as much on medical expenses as other households.
As of 2022, 39 million people globally were living with HIV, and 29.8 million people were accessing antiretroviral therapy. In 2023, about 39.9 million people worldwide were living with HIV.
Eastern and southern Africa have the largest proportion of people living with HIV, with 20.6 million people representing 54.6 percent of the global total. This region also had the highest rate of adult and child deaths due to AIDS in 2020, with 310,000 deaths.